These images from an ESA Venus Express movie of cloud movements
around Venus’s south pole capture
a “peculiar double-eye vortex structure, never clearly seen by any other
Venusian mission before.”
Credit: ESA/Venus Express

Jul 17,
2006Another “Double-Eye” of Venus

Twin footprints of electric currents from space are
apparent at Venus’ south pole—counterparts to the footprints
earlier discovered at Venus’ north pole.

The frames of the
movie shown above depict the main features of an
extraordinary phenomenon on Venus— a “double-eye atmospheric
vortex over the south pole.” The movie shows the rotation
and the shape variation of the double vortex from April 12
to April 19. The images also show the presence of a collar
of colder air around the vortex structure (dark blue), which
ESA scientists describe as “possibly due to the recycling of
cold air downwards.”

In 1978 the Pioneer Venus Orbiter had already revealed
something similar at the north pole of Venus, described as
"one of the more remarkable phenomena in the Solar System."
The nature of the “double eye” vortexes remains a great
mystery to planetary scientists.

A bit of recent history: On discovering the north polar
vortex, scientists called it a "giant vortex of surprisingly
complex structure and behavior located in the middle
atmosphere at the north pole of the planet." The polar
vortex on Venus is the hottest spot in the planet’s upper
atmosphere. The diameter of the collar around the vortex is
about 5000 kilometers, and the temperature contrast between
the hottest part of the chevron-shaped dipoles and the
coldest part of the collar is about 45 K. The configuration
was not expected, and it remains an anomaly for mainstream
("gravity only") theorists.

Electrical theorists, however, say that Venus is highly
active electrically due to its unique origin, its comet-like
past, and a persistent electrical imbalance with its
environment. They claim that astronomers, astrophysicists,
and planetary scientists, oblivious to the behavior of
electric discharges, are continually straining to explain
electricity’s unexpected effects in planetary atmospheres,
which they typically seek to describe in terms of heating
and the mechanics of wind and water motion.

Leading Electric Universe proponent Wal Thornhill identified
the dipolar configuration of the polar vortex as a
cross-sectional view of a cosmic electric current. Within
the solar system, as in every observed region of space,
electric currents flow over vast distances by means of
filaments of plasma that tend to organize themselves into
"twisted pairs." A common name for this "doubleness" in
current-conducting plasmas is a "Birkeland current". All the
features shown above suggest that the two hot spots are the
footprints of twin Birkeland currents. The "giant vortex"
and its "surprisingly complex structure and behavior" are
the energetic effect of the twin currents flowing into the
planet’s atmosphere at the poles. In fact, the Venusian
dipole shows both the configuration and the motion of
Birkeland current pairs in plasma discharge experiments and
in super-computer simulations, including the surrounding
spiral vortex. It is the classic spiral nebula shape.

What baffles mainstream theorists is most often predictable
under the electric model. In February 2005, Thornhill
predicted that a similar configuration would be found in the
region of Venus' south pole. He
wrote: "We should expect to see evidence of the twisted
pair configuration at both poles of Venus, if the input
current is sufficiently strong and this model is correct.”
And that is precisely what has now been discovered at the
south pole of Venus. The hot spots are due to electrical
heating and upwelling of the atmosphere.

While the electric model accounts for the anomalous features
of the vortex, the ad hoc explanations of mainstream
theorists are at best incomplete. A July report from
Geotimes.org reads, "The process that forms Venus' polar
vortexes is similar to the process forming Earth's
less-defined vortices at its poles, in which a warm equator
drives high equatorial winds up toward the cooler poles,
where the winds become unstable. On Venus, the vortex
resembles the enormous mass of turning air that we see in
hurricanes, except that instead of hundreds of kilometers
across, Venus' structures span thousands of kilometers."

But this "explanation" ignores the radical difference
between Venus and Earth. On Venus, the polar vortex is
“inexplicably” hot, and Venus’ rotation (supposedly a
primary force driving atmospheric motion) is extremely slow
and in the retrograde direction (opposite the normal
rotational direction of planets). Thus, Professor Fred
Taylor of the University of Oxford Atmospheric,
Oceanic and Planetary Physics Department wrote of this
latest Venus surprise: "The absence of viable theories which
can be tested, or in this case any theory at all, leaves us
uncomfortably in doubt as to our basic ability to understand
even gross features of planetary atmospheric circulations."

Or perhaps the nature of the phenomena is not as mysterious
as it may appear from archaic vantage points. The twisted
filaments and other features are a trademark of electrical (Birkeland)
currents. And while Taylor expected there could be a similar
structure at the south pole, he had no basis for predicting
details. Thornhill, on the other hand, could offer a
specific interpretation, and a specific prediction, which
has now been validated. The
ESA report says: “ESA's Venus Express data undoubtedly
confirm for the first time the presence of a huge
'double-eye' atmospheric vortex at the planet's south pole.”

In his earlier discussion of the north polar dipole,
Thornhill noted the irregular motion, which also defies
standard models: “The polar dipole has a variable rotation
rate and it varies the position of its axis of rotation with
respect to that of the planet. It was observed to move 500
km from the Venusian pole in less than a day and return just
as quickly. The variable nature of the electrical input to
Venus via the Sun and the snaking about of the Birkeland
currents explain both these characteristics.” The NASA movie
now confirms the same irregularities at the south pole.

We can confidently predict, therefore, that no model of
Venus’ atmosphere that ignores the electrical input at
Venus’ poles will ever explain the observed structures.

Attempts to model such atmospheric anomalies by references
to planetary rotation and increasingly complicated
thermodynamics will typically expose one layer of confusion
after another. Noting that the upper atmospheric winds on
Venus take only four days to complete a rotation, the ESA
story continues, “This 'super-rotation,’ combined with the
natural recycling of hot air in the atmosphere, would induce
the formation of a vortex structure over each pole.”

The authors then ask, “But why two vortexes?” Their
limited field of view does not allow them to see that the
same force that answers this question answers the question
they did not ask: What is driving the spectacular upper
atmospheric winds on a planet that barely rotates at all—and
in the “wrong” direction? At some point, meteorologists will
surely realize that such things will not occur on an
electrically isolated body.
___________________________________________________________________________

Authors David Talbott and Wallace
Thornhill introduce the reader to an age of planetary instability
and earthshaking electrical events in ancient times. If their
hypothesis is correct, it could not fail to alter many paths of
scientific investigation.

Professor
of engineering Donald Scott systematically unravels the myths of the
"Big Bang" cosmology, and he does so without resorting to black
holes, dark matter, dark energy, neutron stars, magnetic
"reconnection", or any other fictions needed to prop up a failed
theory.

In
language designed for scientists and non-scientists alike, authors
Wallace Thornhill and David Talbott show that even the greatest
surprises of the space age are predictable patterns in an electric
universe.